Dazzle

Sure we can. OJ scores his first NHL goal. Guess what happens next? He's benched. This is the type of Green nonsense that has been holding back our prospects. Tell me, name one prospect on Green's lineups aside from Pettersson and Hughes, that was successfully developed under this guy. This is on Benning as much as it is on Green. Green is a lousy coach.

I think that's not exactly accurate. Woo was a solid pick at the time under Benning, who actually improved somewhat the next year. Is he a bluechip defenseman in the 2nd round? Nah, but it was a decent pick, given the other prospects that we missed under Gillis. We also have Demko and Hoglander. We sure got our fair share of decent 2nd rounders. Woo has, by all accounts, taken more steps forward. Benning's influence is negligible because he's been in the AHL the entire time. It's kind of funny. If a prospect fails, it's on Benning. If the prospect succeeds, it's not Benning; it's the scouts. This is the type of hypocrisy and nonsense that I wanted to point out. We've already seen these 'excuses' in this thread alone. Nobody has talked about Klimovich, a prospect that Benning personally scouted and picked with the 2nd round. We have to give credit where it's due. Benning's obviously a much better scouter than he is a GM. The pro scouting team he had let him down, evidently, so that may speak more about his ability to assess his own staff. Juolevi was just poor management from Green. A complete waste of a prospect. Gadjovich and Lind also didn't do very well once they were in the NHL. As for NHL development, if you look at the amount of prospects that came in, I blame that squarely on Green. He sucks at coaching/developing, imo. A coach that can't produce winning records anywhere, regardless of AHL or NHL, isn't coaching material. That was on Benning for staying with this dude.

That's the thing though... McCann was not that mature. He was actually passed up by one additional team before flourishing with Seattle. McCann wasn't a bad pick, but he was not a great character pick (too immature). We also drafted Virtanen (also immature) Benning had some good moves (good draft picks for instance and promoting Brackett, as you said), but then would somehow shoot himself in the foot. The UFA seasons have always been a disaster for Benning, which is weird because this management did a really solid job, despite starting off their tenure here with a big car crash.

Gillis didn't win entirely due to his own doing. A lot of his core came from the predecessors. By the time Gillis got booted out, we had an empty prospect pool, prior to JB. That should tell you a lot about Gillis' success in managing the team. Stop focussing on the playoff runs that he had. We all know he contributed. It's the aftermath that you keep ignoring.

He did a lot better than his predecessor in the drafting department, whether that was 1st round or the 6th. Still doesn't mean Benning was a great GM in hindsight. We just have to call a spade when it's a spade. Gillis was awful at drafting, regardless if he had a 1st round pick or not. You can't use the excuse that he tried to win to excuse the poor drafting. Gillis and JB probably would've been a decent combination together because they each lacked respective skills to be a good GM. Gillis would've been awful for a rebuild, period. JB was definitely a much better drafter.

See, that's the thing about this fanbase... they just keep going back to this Benning period, over and over. All the while ignoring (over and over Gillis' mistakes, particularly drafting. The guy only grabbed two players in the first round, and busted the rest of them, except Hutton. That's awful for 6 years of work. This fanbase is absolutely stuck in the past with almost no ability to see things in the present or in the future.

I did a search and that in 2013 that they removed the word "insulting" from this section 5, so it's no longer there. So the campaign worked for that. Still, insults can be racist. I don't know if the law was written poorly, or if it's covered under a different section - I don't know UK law at all. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/5

Fully agreed with this and the rest of your post as well. It doesn't matter if someone is white or black; once you start targetting their skin colour, or religion, or sexual orientation, it becomes hateful rhetoric. I do believe that a lot of people will understand the boundaries of what a joke is, but there are still others who do not. Some people make sexual jokes thinking that it's funny, but it would be harassment or just plain inappropriate.

Under no circumstances should police be involved, except in the cases where a person feels threatened. Rowan doesn't establish the boundaries of where free speech is. He only talks about the dangers of censorship and the removed 'right' to insult someone. However, there is a huge missed opportunity to talk about hate speech which is targeting a person's race/religion/gender/sexual orientation etc etc, and how it should not be included in this so-called freedom of speech. He has actually made it more ambiguous about what an insult is. Does it include hateful speech? Because it sure sounds like it. If someone says this black politician is a giant monkey, that is both an insult and probably a racist comment. Rowan SHOULD have drawn the line on this. I get that he wants society to be able to insult politicians without fear of government reprisal, but we all understand that everyone is going to be different. We cannot leave stuff like this open to interpretation.

See, that's the thing, I did watch the video. These are my takeaways from that video: He quickly pointed out the dangers of censorship from the government that he himself would largely be immune to, given his public profile. He said there's a lot of interpretation to what "insulting" means, which I agree with him entirely. His examples included some incidents involving a horse being called gay, among other ridiculous situations, all of which I agree are ridiculous. The problem is that he doesn't distinguish hate speech and its effects on people. He has emphasized that an insult should be allowed (I have no issues with this), but he goes on to talk about "intolerance" and how it's trying to be controlled. THIS is the section where he gets himself into trouble, in my opinion. Just as the logic is that "insulting" is too broad of a category to describe something, racist/hateful language is definitely offensive and insulting (depending on what is said), but Rowan talks NOTHING about this. He makes some good points about "free speech" and mentions that we should take responsibility for what we say. Sure, that's a great message, but in this video specifically, the people who use racist language will not care about that so-called responsibility. I'm not saying the law should intervene either. It's worth noting that his speech which was originally intended for 'mild' insults is open to interpretation, just as his claim that "insult" is too broad. What is mild to one person may not be mild to another. When you think deeper as to how he expressed himself, there are more problems than there are solutions to his talk here. So let's just say someone said something racist, which another person took offense to. The first person could easily claim "it's just a joke bro". In my opinion, that situation is absolutely garbage and we don't want to see that. Rowan should've defined the boundaries on what constitutes free speech, but he didn't. Are we to assume that racist language should be allowed? The fact that he was silent on that front is crappy.

I could feel you were inspired by George Carlin for most of this.

I re-read your post and your other posts. I don't know if it's 'assault', per se, but I can understand if someone would feel threatened by it. (I'm not black and I cannot presume to know what I'd feel in that context) It's crazy to me that there are posters in here that agree with Rowan who talk about enabling the racist talk to flourish openly because it is "free speech", all the while claiming that the lack of this said free speech would be terrible for society. It's a ridiculous position to take.

Yes, you're absolutely right. It's a shame that in one of the most educated parts of the world, the very principle that we take for granted - free speech - is misunderstood by people who clearly have no intention of educating themselves on the matter. I'd like to add that some people lack critical thinking skills. By that, I am referring to the fact that those people readily agree with a celebrity figure without questioning him in any way. When his arguments are challenged, those people can't form a defense to those criticisms. That should make you question whether or not his arguments are any good. Personally, I think Rowan is wrong with his approach, which I explained above. Being unable to use racist or hateful language is not censorship. People can still say it. It's not like it is banned from use. However, don't expect not to have consequences, whether that is angry confrontation from others (again, not condoning violence), or consequences when an employer finds out. Freedom of speech means that you can criticize government, whether that is the one in power or not, without being jailed or arrested, so long as you are not inciting violence on any one person.

It still isn't hate speech, per se, because hate speech is reserved for a general group of people (i.e. ethnic/religious group). The Twins are people, but they are not a GROUP of people. At the bare minimum, calling the Sedins "sisters" is worthy of that person being criticized for using misogynistic and sexist language, but it's still not hate speech. Now if you were to say that the Swedish people are <insult remark> then that could qualify as hate speech. When someone incites violence on a group, there should not be any doubt that it is hate speech. Freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean there aren't consequences. Abusing that freedom of speech to express hateful language should get some people in trouble, whether that is a physical confrontation from someone else (I'm not condoning vigilante justice), or employer consequence. Inciting violence on someone is never ok under free speech.

Some people just want things both ways. Not to be criticized because they are just "exercising their opinion to free speech", all the while being a douchebag (racist or otherwise) while hiding under the guise of said free speech. It makes one wonder whether the ones who truly have fragile skin are the ones who talk about racist language being acceptable. They are the ones who want to throw rocks at glass houses, but not the other way around.

No, the Twins being called "sisters" is not hate speech. Jesus Christ. This is an insult as Rowan talks about. However, the disagreement is on the extent of free speech. I do not believe we should allow hate as part of free speech. Hate will likely breed violence. This is not a logical fallacy. Hate speech is saying that a <certain group of people> are subhuman.

Pretty arrogant of you to think that. Then again, I don't think you are even thinking about anything else except your own little bubble. It's ok to have an opinion. However, don't expect that opinion to not be challenged. There are problems with his position, but once again, there is a lot of deflection to the criticisms rather than any real answers to them. "Common sense and logic" is a weak defense, which is nothing more than saying God told me the answer. Logic requires you to support your evidence. You have shown no shred of that here.

You mean it aligns with what you think, right?

We all understand censorship to be shutting down opinions that contradict a government's position. It is dangerous to allow censorship because it results in a one-way narrative (i.e. propaganda). However, this definition appears to ignore some elements, such as deliberate misinformation, especially when someone talks about COVID cures that have no scientific basis. Many websites (social media apps) have the ability to report that. People say this is "censorship", but that is a very broad interpretation of that. Being unable to use racist language is not censorship, buddy. What a crock position to take lol.

Who?

I addressed this already, which you conveniently ignored. If you think my point was that you can "make anything out to be racist", that is an example of a strawman argument. Racist language is what he would call "free speech". He said that we should have more of this so that we could criticize it when it happens. The problem is that he's only talking about theoretical. He doesn't talk about how other people would FEEL about racist language. There's a reason why you don't get arrested for saying racist words - and you shouldn't - but if you threaten someone with it, it's no longer free speech. Free speech is severely misunderstood by you and by others. I highly suggest you learn what it is and its limitations. The scary part is that you think free speech is the ability to say whatever you want.

I believe he spent some time deliberating how he should put these ideas into words; however, he missed the mark on some things. Free speech does NOT mean racist language is acceptable. Racist rhetoric could potentially encourage violence and that is absolutely not acceptable. I seriously hate to use the word privilege, but he is out of touch because he is not one of the non-whites affected by racism. Racist language, by itself, should not be tolerated by society. There is no benefit to bringing about racist language in a daily life. He might think this is a form of 'censorship', but that is absolutely a ludicrous position to take. As for arresting someone for using racist language, that is obviously not justifiable, but arresting someone for foul language is not the same as intimidating someone with racist language. Rowan Atkinson is an intelligent person, objectively speaking, but his position here is quite bad. Yes, he has the right to express himself, as he did here, but I thoroughly disagree with his lines of reasoning.

There it is - that extension.

Idk... the Hronek trade just seemed like a desperation trade. They could've signed some players for free without giving up draft picks. The jury is still out on Hronek, but this management has been suspect with cap management, even if they are good at evaluating pro players. Certainly much better than Benning.

I think you overstated Bonino's importance. Bonino was traded away after one season and he played pretty average to the rest of his career. We don't know why he was traded after one season. Perhaps he asked to be traded. 15 goals and 24 assists for 39 points was not bad at all during Vancouver. However, after the trade, he produced at about the same rate in Pittsburgh. In fact, he is/was a 40 point player (and never exceeded that number again). The trade was/is a wash for both sides in hindsight. Bonino's playoff numbers during one season give Pittsburgh an edge. On the other hand, the Forsling trade hurt the Canucks in more ways than one. We NEEDED an offensive D man like him. He also tended to score a lot with the Canucks around. And now, we see him skating in the finals. The Canucks did not sink because of Bonino and/or Sutter.